That Tolkien would have drawn from the same "pool" of sources as Scott, so that would give them some kind of kinship...

The very strong Anti-Norman tone of the book was one thing that I would have thought Tolkien would have liked, given how he felt about what the Normans did to the original culture of his land. I was kind of surprised by that aspect of Ivanhoe, not anything I expected -- the Normans really come off very badly, though Scott has fun with the Saxons as well.

I was also under the impression Tolkien did not really like the Arthur sagas a whole lot -- I'm kind of intrigued by that new Tolkien Arthur book, just to understand more of how he looked at those legends. Weaver